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Malzahar/Strategy
Skill Usage * can by spamming abilities at spawn. This can be useful at beginning of game by using an ability to quickly decimate the jungle monsters or enemy minions in your lane. ** Be aware that Voidlings grant 12 Gold as bounty. If you die while having a Voidling summoned, it will not die outright but it will stay motionless and sometimes attack an opponent very close to them, they can still be killed to grant their bounty, ** Voidlings are the key in Malzahar's combo as they are the ones who deal damage to enemies while suppressed. * Never underestimate . It is extremely effective at turning team fights, both damaging and silencing as many enemies as possible. ** can turn a disadvantageous push from enemy team into a stalemate by spamming it on incoming enemy champions. Enemies who were damaged and silenced will think twice, or even retreat from the front due to the momentary vulnerability while the silence debuff is in place. ** If there is an enemy who needs to cast his whole combo and escape with skill try to silence him after he is in range. He will be an easy target after it. ** Remember that grants vision. Use this to check bushes or over walls for enemy champions. * Casting on an enemy minion that is about to die is a good way to farm minion kills or harass safely because of its chain reaction. Malefic Vision is Malzahar's main ability to do a pentakill, stay alert of your enemies to cast it on the right position at the right time. ** It is best to cast on Caster Minions first when a new wave of minions comes. As they have lower health than Melee Minions, they typically have a higher chance of dying, thus increasing the chance of propagating. During this time the enemy Melee Minions will fight your own, causing their health to be lower and increasing your odds of killing them. If you are lucky enough and time it correctly, you can potentially chain one through all 6 minions in a wave using this method. * will still gain gold and XP from anywhere on the map if finishes off the minions. This is useful both to avoid being denied and to continue to farm aggressively all game long, but be careful as this might cost you gold and XP if the vision is blocked by enemy champions or siege minions. * Leveling up early in the game is a great way to harass enemy champions without using any mana. Simply cast it on a wave of minions near the enemy champion and auto-attack the infected minion until it spreads to the champion. This results in around 50-120 gold, almost no mana lost (you might have gained mana), and the enemy champion being out of 100-200 health. At rank 1 it takes 6 minion kills to fully refund the mana cost. At all other ranks it takes 5 minion kills to fully refund the mana cost. * Against a single target (champion), is Malzahar's most mana-efficient damage ability even if it doesn't jump, and is his only harassment method that won't push his lane. * is very good at harassing enemies under a turret. and both have excellent range, and can be used to harass or finish off enemies under a turret. and both take a second before they deal their damage, allowing you to get back out of turret range. * has a suppression effect; it disables the use of summoner spells and is not affected by tenacity like . However, the suppression effect of his ultimate can be canceled by , , or . * During a team fight use to disable any high DPS or healers for your team to pick off quick. When carefully aimed it can be used through some walls in Summoner's Rift, Twisted Treeline and the Crystal Scar as well. * A combo of , , , , and will kill all but the toughest champions, which makes a great 1v1 champion. ** It's highly recommended that you use Smart cast to fire your arsenal of abilities as quickly as possible and deny your target any chance to escape. ** Possible Bug: Ignite will interrupt Nether Grasp, so it's advisable to replace Ignite with other Summoner Spells such as Teleport of Barrier. * deals a percentage of the target's maximum health, meaning that late game can deal tons of damage when multiple enemies stand on his . * Don't underestimate the power of ; unlike many pool attacks, its damage scales off the enemy's max HP, allowing it to do potentially more damage than most other pool attacks. ** Also, working with teammates to stun an enemy champion on can prove to be devastating. * does not have to be used to kill an enemy, but can disable an enemy instead. Nether Grasp is highly advisable to use to an enemy if the Voidling is fully grown so that its damage is stronger. * is a great way of zoning enemies as they realize it takes away a percentage of their health. * Unlike most burst mages can bring down fighters without much resistance, as his combo is the most powerful in-game (balanced by the entire lack of escaping abilities) and offers the highest DPS in game during the 2.5-3.5 seconds in which most of it happens. * Remember that is a combo mage (NOT A BURST MAGE, as it requires him to channel it), this means: ** He has a massive power curve at level 6 and can flash-kill almost any laning opponent. ** He is an easy prey to anti-combo opponents, especially those with silences. ** He is VERY ultimate dependent to kill enemy by himself, get caught without it and your best chance to kill someone is to land , and in the way while you run. ** No one can safely 1v1 you without . ** If a spell shield is in your way try to pop in down with . ** He has long cooldowns, be extra-careful during those and abuse of your Voidlings while you have no abilities, as unleashing a full combo will always get at least a Voidling. * excels at killing carries and mages on teamfights, as they cannot defend or attack at all because of and they are too fragile to survive, but it is dangerous to do so when the enemy frontline is present and carries are more likely to get a . * It is usually a better idea to use on fighters or initiators than on carries, as a full combo with QWER and assistance of your team can most likely take out one member of the enemy team from the beginning of the teamfight. * is a great pusher with his and either with his or his . This allows to help lanes in trouble by pushing his own and with his combo at level 6 can ensure a kill. * At level 6 while pushing with your and your enemy laner gets caught you can then lay down your and then for an easy kill. * Using as a way to stop an enemy for a more successful gank or to feed the jungler a kill is never a bad idea especially when the jungler is someone like Kha'Zix or Rengar who are both devastating after a few kills. Build Usages AP Malzahar Malzahar is an AP caster who hugely benefits from ability power and high-health items to kill-and-survive by using his combo that has the highest DPS in the game. * Although has no mana problem in lane if is chained through the minions, outside of the lane is mana hungry. So building one of these three : a , a or a early game will solve the problem. * is a great item for considering he has no real escape mechanism or crowd control other than and . However, since all of his abilities are AoE or DoT, only the 15% slow applies, making this item less effective. * Due to being a DoT champion, building a and a on will allow him to inflict even more damage over time. The burn effect on will deal double damage to a slowed enemy, thanks to , allowing abilities such as to become devastating. * Using a is another good idea for more survivability and prevents your ultimate from being interrupted by an enemy with a stun or silence. * is a good item as it will keep you alive with the spell vamp while you are using . However, on his AoE spells, the spell vamp is diminished (33% rate). Farming minions waves with and spell vamp item can restore a lot of mana and restore health. ** offers spell vamp, ability power and cooldown reduction, which benefits . ** will also give spell vamp, but also would drastically increase the power of his Voidlings, as they scale with his bonus damage. * is a useful item, giving you a lot of magic penetration, allowing all your abilities to deal more damage. Also use items such as and . is also a great item to get if enemy team composition is magic-heavy. Morellonomicon provides AP, CDR, mana regen and grievous wounds that will improve Malzahar's combo. * You cannot use the active in conjunction with - it will interrupt the spell. * can be built as a pusher as well. With his Voidling, he is able to put out a considerable amount of damage on turrets. Don't be afraid to buy if you are feeling confident enough to push. * is a great buy for because all of his spells have high ability power ratios. AD Malzahar * has an unspoken potential as an AD caster due to the fact that Malzahar's benefit from his AD and his armor penetration. This makes a spam-oriented AD Malzahar build fairly viable. ** provides Cooldown Reduction, Armor Penetration, and Attack damage, as well as a handy passive that makes autoattacking more frequently a valuable asset. **To supplement the high mana costs regarding spamming spells, can synergize in particular with this build as it provides Mana and damage, which helps you deliver minions that are in turn stronger. Additionally, also gives strength with his autoattacks, although it is advised to use Muramana's passive sparingly, as it will drain your mana just as fast as any of your skills. ** provides CDR, built-in penetration, and attack damage, while also giving more incentive to autoattack, as your attacks will passively reduce armor for all incoming sources of physical damage, including Voidlings. **For this kind of build, allows you to augment physical attacks and encourage your spell-spamming, while giving you damage for your Voidlings. **For a tankier AD build, can provide stellar health and regeneration. ** can grant a spectacular amount of damage and sustain, and is naturally good at farming minions up. **To make autoattacks potentially more lethal, can grant you a potential for larger damage through critical strikes. Regardless of whether or not you're concerned with 's regular damage output, his Voidlings will still benefit from the attack damage it grants. **For boots, consider either getting , or . Greaves will give Malzahar a greater DPS output, while the Treads help keep Malzahar fairly tanky. The Ionian Boots will give CDR, to help with his spamming potential. **With CDR in mind, quick and easy ways to achieve 40% CDR include and . PROS and CONS PROS: * Silence and Suppress * Strong DPS * Mana-sustain * Strong Combo * Killer Pet * Ranged Champion * Hybrid * Farms quickly CONS: * No Mobility * Prone to Ganks * Easily countered by disabling items Recommended builds Countering * suppression can be removed by , , and ** A common misconception is that Quicksilver Sash will hard counter Malzahar and leave him completely helpless. While it's true that Quicksilver Sash removes the suppression from Nether Grasp, it doesn't remove the damage, so Malzahar may still kill you using the damage part of his ultimate. You should be able to either quickly burst Malzahar down, or displace him with a hard CC, otherwise this item may actually be a waste of gold. ** In addition, Nether Grasp is not the only dangerous ability on Malzahar's kit. He has a lot of AoE abilities and the tools to destroy tanks and turn the tide of battles with his silence, so try to focus him (which should be easy, as Malzahar has no escapes). * and might give an enemy second thoughts about trying to suppress you with . * abilities deal magic damage so getting more than 100 magic resist can severely hinder the amount of damage he puts out. * one of the (if not the) most powerful 1v1 champions in game as his combo is extremely overwhelming for almost any champion, because they can't benefit from any life steal or spell vamp during the combo, due to being disabled. On the other hand, he is pretty weak if long range crowd control or tank with long range gap-closer is present. * Take care when going 1v1 against an enemy as is usually used to combo with and . Usually this will be a kill for . * Keep in mind that Malzahar is essentially stunned when he uses , as it has a fairly long channel time. Take advantage of this to gang up on him if he uses it in a bad position. ** Be careful to gank if your partner is low on health and playing carefully, as will smash your friend and flee (likely using Flash). * Save a disable for when uses his . * If you see one of your allies under the effect of , you can stun or silence the enemy out of the channeling and safe your allies. * Be extremely careful about turret diving even if he has very low health, he will just deliver the combo, while you are suppressed and getting killed by the turret * If you play as a tank, take care not to stand above for too long or else the spell will devastate your health and can sometimes kill you if you're not too careful as it deals a percentage of your health. * is 's main farming-tool and mana-sustain early game. If you stand next to a minion that has on it, so that it jumps over to you and not to another minion, you can deny part of his farm early game, but beware that and Voidlings still do considerable damage. This tactic is better used by high sustain champions with self-heal or huge shields like whose shield allow to catch and still get away pretty unharmed. Champion spotlight